Category: How It Is

Making philosophy about the why behind technical things.

Take my SPDY, Please

When I upgraded my server to Apache 2.4, I lamented that the choice had killed any ability I had to run SPDY. This led to me installing an Nginx proxy on my box and being pretty happy with it.

I wanted to like the idea of SPDY on Apache, but there were serious issues with mod_spdy. First of all, it’s incompatible with Apache version 2.4. That sucks. While someone had forked it, issue number two made me worry. You see, mod_spdy requires OpenSSL version 1.0.1c and modifies mod_ssl. If it was Google’s suggestions for it, I might be okay, but now we’re talking about trusting some random person out there. No. Finally the dippy thing hadn’t been updated in years.

Someone finally shamed Google enough, because earlier this year Google gave mod_spdy to Apache. The plan is for it to be a part of Apache 2.4, as well as the future 2.6/3.0 world:

Being a part of Apache core will make SPDY support even more widely available for Apache httpd users, and pave the way for HTTP/2.0. It will also further improve that support over the original version of mod_spdy by better integrating SPDY and HTTP/2.0’s multiplexing features with the core part of the server.

Finally!

Except not. Sadly, there’s been very little activity since this summer. You can look at the code on Apache SVN and mod_spdy hasn’t been touched in 3 months. It’s sad to see this linger. I had high hopes that Apache would jump and run, but they haven’t even made it work with Apache 2.4 yet.

I’m not going to hold my breath for parity on this one just yet.

31 December, 2014
Themes Suck

“I need help finding a good theme!”

No question will make me want to run screaming more than that. Not even the dreaded “Should I use Multisite?” question is as bad as that one, because picking a theme is hard!

I mentioned to my coworker that it’s like trying to find a needle in a pile of tainted needles and the reason is really simple. Themes are ‘easy’ to code and hard to find the right one.

A theme is personal

What you think looks good is different from what I think looks good. I love larger fonts for readability, but at the same time I don’t like too much whitespace. I don’t want an overabundance of clutter, but a single column isn’t always what I think looks ‘good.’ I’m fond of a sidebar. I also like certain color schemes, like aqua and blues and greens, but not others like yellows. That means I’ll want a theme that either matches my colors or lets me change them easily.

I need to know what you like before I can help you out.

A theme meets your needs

What you need out of a theme is different from what I need. You may need things for custom post types built in. I don’t. I may want a grid layout for content. You don’t. What you need is very specific to your vision of your site, and picking out a ‘good’ theme to match that isn’t easy. But you have to know what you need before you start to pick out a theme. Asking me ‘what’s a good theme for my comedian website?’ is not a simple answer. What do you want to do with it? Do you want to sell things, show your gigs, blog, have a survey?

I need to know what you need before I can help you find something.

A theme will cost you money or time (or both)

What you can do and what I can do are different. I hate coding themes. I am happy to pay the right people to do it for me. That said, I’m happy making a child theme or forking a theme, or using a plugin to extend it. I’m willing to spend money and time to make a theme suit me, because I look at them and get ‘most of the way there’ with pretty much all themes. No theme has ever been 100% perfect for me ever, but I think that’s okay. A theme that is the right shape will be enough, provided I can extend it (or pay someone to do it). I may need support, and I need to make sure I get that, so if I pay for a theme, I want to know how far down the rabbit hole they’ll go with me.

I need to know your budget before I can point you to the right place.

A theme represents you

Who you are and who I am are different. This is the most wibbly-wobbley part. Your theme shows off ‘you.’ If you, like me, have issues visualizing that, it’s hard to find the right theme except to say “You’ll know it when you see it.” But understanding yourself, your likes and dislikes and the aspects of you that you want the theme to show off will help you pick the right theme. You may not know it all to begin with, but start making notes. When you see something you love, think about why you love it. When you hate something, do the same. Make a list of what you love and hate, what features make you wince and which ones you crave. Understanding why you make those visceral reactions to a theme helps you understand you.

You need to know who you are before you ask anyone to help you find a theme.

Why do you love (or hate) suggesting themes?

Do you feel like I do? Let’s hear why!

29 December, 2014
Mailbag: What Plugins Do I Use?

This was actually a bit of a shill from someone I didn’t know, asking to help him with his own ’roundup’ of various experts. I didn’t reply, mostly because I was super busy and favors like this from random people are low on my list of things I’ll ever reply to. But the question is interesting.

Which WordPress plugins do you use most in the following categories: Seo, Social Media, Commenting, Performance, Captcha and Payments.

Answer to all: None.

Seriously, though. The only ‘Social Media’ plugin I use is Jetpack, and that’s just to push my content to Twitter and Facebook reliably. I don’t use any SEO plugins though when I do, I use WordPress SEO because I trust Yoast. Most of the time, my themes handle SEO for me just fine.

Captcha I never use. I won’t. I hate captcha. Captcha isn’t accessible, as I’ve been saying for four years. Similarly I don’t use commenting plugins because I don’t need them, and I like owning my content. When you put up barriers to comments, you get fewer comments.

Performance plugins are a weird area. Yes, I use plugins for that, but it’s got to do with what I installed on my server. I have memcached and ZendOptimizer, so I use a couple things for that. Zach Tollman’s memcached object-cache.php plugin and Batcache. But really most of the work is on the server already having the backend required for those. That’s the same reason I have Google Pagespeed on the server.

Payments… I don’t know how I could answer this. I use Easy Digital Downloads for sales, and I handle payments through Paypal and Stripe right now. But that isn’t so much a plugin question as a who do I trust with my money question. I’d be using them regardless of if I used EDD or not.

Asking me what I use ‘most’ is a very weird question since I use what’s right for the job I’m facing. If that answer is ‘Not WordPress’ then I don’t use WordPress. So with that in mind, I rarely blanket recommend any plugin out there. I listen to people, what they’re asking, what they mean, and how they sound, and I try to recommend based on all to those aspects. There’s rarely one perfect answer for everyone.

If you think I’m joking, read Chris Lema on the perfect WP shopping cart plugin. There are a lot of choices and decisions and options out there, but you’ve got to know what you really need before you make a choice.

Of course for me, when the choice is between two equally well written plugins, I pick the one where I’ve worked with the developers before hand.

26 December, 2014
Two Factor Apps

Hat tip to Kat for cluing me into this!

Two Factor Authentication is a wonderful thing between two places. Between ten it’s a hassle.

I got a new phone and was going through the process of re-entering all my codes on the official Google Authenticator which, once you install it and add a couple codes, looks pretty basic and utilitarian. It lists all your codes and what site they’re for.

My issue with the app is pretty basic. First of all, it’s Google’s and I’m not a huge fan. Second, the app hasn’t been updated in a year and it shows. Third, I have to pull my phone out when I want to log in (which is the point, I know). Fourth, I got a new phone and had to manually move everything over.

The last two items are actually the biggest hassle.

Enter Authy. It hits all four points. It’s not Google, it’s updated to look right on an iPhone 6, it has a desktop app that syncs with your phone, and it’s got backups.

My fear right away was “Where is my backup?” and this is all they say:

For your convenience Authy can store an encrypted copy of your Authenticator accounts in the cloud. The account is encrypted/decrypted inside your phone, so neither Authy or anyone affiliated with Authy have access to your accounts.

I’m not super happy that I don’t know what cloud it’s in, or whose (Amazon probably), and I dislike that unlike 1Password I can’t pick where I put the backups. What if I want to sync to Dropbox? Or iCloud? That would be a great improvement. That said, they’re upfront about their backups and how they work and, unlike Google, appear to have people who are willing to talk to you about things.

But.

Google

Authy

The only issue I see with Authy’s layout is that if I have more than 12 items, it’s a little weird to scroll around the tiny boxes.

Now if only Twitter and Paypal would have real 2FA and not ‘SMS’ which doesn’t help me at all outside my home country.

22 December, 2014
Mailbag: Can I do it on WP (Legally?)

This one comes from Zara:

I’m about to create a website on wordpress. My website is an escort website. It is adult oriented. The new website would look exactly like my current website […] and I’m considering to build a new website on wp.

Since my friend’s website is built on wp and is escort oriented, plus it was banned by wp, now I’m worried about it all.

Is it allowed to build an escort website on wp?

Yes.

I’ve mentioned it before, that you can use WP for porn because the freedoms of the GPL allow it. More specifically, WordPress states that you can use it for anything you want.

So what’s Zara talking about when she says ‘it was banned by wp’ if that’s true? We’re talking about a couple things here, one is WordPress.org and the other is WordPress.com and yes, it’s a headache.

WordPress.org is the home of the software. WordPress.com is a hosting service that runs nothing but a locked down, managed, WordPress Multisite instance that you can use for free (or pay for add-ons). As a hosting company, WordPress.com has specific rules and bylaws that they restrict their users to. This is, in no way shape or form, a violation of your GPL permissions. They’re not restricting WordPress usage, they’re restricting your usage of their servers and their system.

So yes, Zara, you can use the WordPress software for your escort website, but you need to find a web host who will give you permission to host it. My advice to you is to make sure what you’re doing is legal where you live. Also, make sure it’s legal for your webhost. At DreamHost, I know we allow any website that’s legal in the state of California, which means we host a lot of sites I personally disagree with but will defend their right to publish with my dying breath. Not every website has the same rules, so just ask them if they allow escort sites. They should be able to answer, or pass you on to legal for confirmation.

Good luck!

19 December, 2014
You’re Not The Priority With Free Support

Once in a while, someone flies off the rails when they don’t get a fast enough answer for their question in a freely supported product. They don’t get the right answer, or they get what they feel is a run-around by a total stranger trying to understand the real problem, and basically they feel the service should be better.

Here’s a cold hard truth.

When it comes to free support on free products, you aren’t the priority.

Usually when people get shirty about the ‘lack of quality support’ I point out that (on WordPress.org) support is handled predominantly by unpaid volunteers who are offering sage advice and help out of the kindness of their hearts. This is mostly true. Some of us are paid by our companies to volunteer, others are doing it to master skills (not much teaches you how a product works faster than helping someone else debug it), and others do it because they enjoy it. But as far as WordPress goes, it doesn’t directly pay anyone to do support.

Sidebar: Automattic isn’t WordPress and doesn’t own WordPress. Automattic is a company who pays for some of their employees to help out in the forums. And it’s making my point. Some of us get paid by our companies.

When I tell people that they need to scale down their expectations, what I don’t mean is they should expect worse help, but that they should expect slower help. Because they’re not the priority.

What’s my priority? Number one is my family (hello). But after that you get my paying job. Keeping abreast of everything WP related that impacts us, keeping on top of server changes, looking for patterns in tickets to see if we missed something, and generally knowing everything I possibly can about WordPress at DreamHost. After that my priority becomes the websites I run (like this one) and other hobbies I have.

That begs the question of when is WordPress public support my priority? When I have the time. I try to carve out at least a couple hours a day to check in. These need to be consecutive hours, a nice block of time to catch up and read and help. I don’t always get it. Sometimes I get thirty minutes. And when I am helping out, I prioritize my time.

If there’s an alpha/beta of WP out, I check there first. If we just released a new version, I’m over in the general troubleshooting. Then I hit Multisite, because we have a very small amount of people there. If I still have time, I’ll get the ‘Requests and Feedback’ and ‘Misc.’ forums. Next I hit up the dread Ideas forum, clean out the spam, and sort things that are dupes or solved or in the wrong place.

And then I’ve hit how much free time I have, so I go over to plugins for reviewing those. Anyone who was closed for a security issue comes first. After that, it’s anyone who replied to our emails. Then I close out anyone who didn’t reply in 7 days, check for people with bad plugin names, and finally I can start in on the queue.

It’s a lot to do on top of a day job. So sometimes you will get a reply from me at 8am and then nothing again for 24 hours, because all of those things are important to people and they all need to be taken care of and you, personally, aren’t my number one priority. It’s the same reason why you may not get immediate replies from anyone volunteering, and its why I tell you to lower your expectations.

Free support isn’t better or worse, but it does run at it’s pace and that may not be yours.

17 December, 2014